Who was Sir William Henry Perkin?

Born in London's East End on March 12, 1838, William Perkin was the son of a successful carpenter which allowed him to attend the prestigious City of London School - setting him on a path of scientific discovery.

In 1853, at the age of just 15, Perkin began working with esteemed German chemist August Wilhelm von Hofmann at what is now known as Imperial College London.

The pair were researching and experimenting with quinine, a chemical that was first discovered in the bark of certain trees, and how it could be used to combat malaria.

While carrying out experiments at his flat, Perkin discovered that aniline, a compound, could be used to create a substance of a rich, deep purple colour when it was combined with alcohol.

The reason this was significant? Perkin had accidentally discovered a way of creating and mass producing a dye which could be used to colour fabrics – which up until then had to be coloured with expensive natural substances that could never be used in large quantities.

In an even better stroke of luck, the rich purple colour Perkin had stumbled across was in demand due to its long-time association with royalty and aristocracy.

It was at this point Perkin and his brother realised they had a very lucrative creation on their hands.

From there, Perkin built factories, raised funds and demand went through the roof when the colour was adopted by no less than Queen Victoria herself.

Perkin passed away in 1907 after suffering from pneumonia and is buried in Harrow. All three of his sons followed in his footsteps and became chemists.

LATEST GOOGLE DOODLES

A COLOURFUL LIFE

Who was Paul Klee? Google Doodle celebrates artist on his 139th birthday

GOOGLE HONOUR

Who was Nelly Sachs? Google Doodle honours Nobel Prize-winning writer

GREAT WAR HEROINE

Who was Edith Cavell? Google Doodle celebrates heroic World War One nurse

WEB PROF

ANTI-SLAVERY HEROINE

20 YEARS

Google's birthday is TODAY and there's a Doodle too! Here's what you need to know

PLAY ON WORDS

Who was Joanna Baillie? Google Doodle celebrates Plays on the Passions author

What is a Google Doodle?

In 1998, the search engine founders Larry and Sergey drew a stick figure behind the second 'o' of Google as a message to that they were out of office at the Burning Man festival and with that, Google Doodles were born.

The company decided that they should decorate the logo to mark cultural moments and it soon became clear that users really enjoyed the change to the Google homepage.